How To Simulate Overheads For Drums?

[wagtunes]

Okay, so you mic drums and you've got your floor mics and your overheads.

If you're using virtual drums and are using a drum VST that doesn't have overhead drum samples that you can mix in, is there a way to simulate overhead drums using the same samples that you're using for your main drums or is the only possible way to get overhead drum samples or a drum VST that has overheads?

If there is no way to simulate this, what drum VSTs have good overheads?

This is for rock drums, obviously.

[JoeCat]

Okay, so you mic drums and you've got your floor mics and your overheads.

If you're using virtual drums and are using a drum VST that doesn't have overhead drum samples that you can mix in, is there a way to simulate overhead drums using the same samples that you're using for your main drums or is the only possible way to get overhead drum samples or a drum VST that has overheads?

If there is no way to simulate this, what drum VSTs have good overheads?

This is for rock drums, obviously.

I think if I were doing that I'd put together a return track, send all the drums there, and mix that in parallel. Gluing them together properly would simulate overheads to some extent.

To start though, you'd want to maybe process the individual components before sending them - say, for example, band-passing the kick, boosting the cymbals, etc. Assuming you can send the individual drum channels to the return, you might make a copy of the drum track, mute the outputs, but send the signals individually processed to the return track.

Then you could eq, adjust the stereo field, etc. of the return track.

A lot of work, but once you do it for a particular kit, you're good.

There are some videos where you can hear just the overheads for a kit and at least get a general feel, such as here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fip3DTEgvCU

Lastly, you might want to get a little snare bleed going (always good for getting a "live" drum sound) - take a piece of the snare tail and layer it on the kick. You may even want to layer a tiny bit over the low tom, etc.

I'm just tossing this out now (haven't had to do it - I've been spoiled by Abbey Road drums, which have mixins for bleed and overheads), but just thinking how I would start.

BTW - like the new avatar

[BertKoor]

You can put them through a convolution reverb plugin loaded with an appropriate IR for overhead bleed. (Good luck finding that btw...) It's just the same sound but less direct and with lots of room reflections. Lower-mids would be far less present.

[imrae]

I'd send different amounts of each piece to an "overheads" bus with a studio room convolution reverb on it. Emphasise the cymbals and snare. The kick send should be high-passed, maybe with some additional phase rotation, because the kick heard in overheads is dominated by the *side* of the kick and by room reflections (which you'll be faking and layering in as well, right?)

[wagtunes]

Okay, so you mic drums and you've got your floor mics and your overheads.

If you're using virtual drums and are using a drum VST that doesn't have overhead drum samples that you can mix in, is there a way to simulate overhead drums using the same samples that you're using for your main drums or is the only possible way to get overhead drum samples or a drum VST that has overheads?

If there is no way to simulate this, what drum VSTs have good overheads?

This is for rock drums, obviously.

I think if I were doing that I'd put together a return track, send all the drums there, and mix that in parallel. Gluing them together properly would simulate overheads to some extent.

To start though, you'd want to maybe process the individual components before sending them - say, for example, band-passing the kick, boosting the cymbals, etc. Assuming you can send the individual drum channels to the return, you might make a copy of the drum track, mute the outputs, but send the signals individually processed to the return track.

Then you could eq, adjust the stereo field, etc. of the return track.

A lot of work, but once you do it for a particular kit, you're good.

There are some videos where you can hear just the overheads for a kit and at least get a general feel, such as here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fip3DTEgvCU

Lastly, you might want to get a little snare bleed going (always good for getting a "live" drum sound) - take a piece of the snare tail and layer it on the kick. You may even want to layer a tiny bit over the low tom, etc.

I'm just tossing this out now (haven't had to do it - I've been spoiled by Abbey Road drums, which have mixins for bleed and overheads), but just thinking how I would start.

BTW - like the new avatar

Abbey Road drums (in Komplete?) have overheads?

[JoeCat]

Okay, so you mic drums and you've got your floor mics and your overheads.

If you're using virtual drums and are using a drum VST that doesn't have overhead drum samples that you can mix in, is there a way to simulate overhead drums using the same samples that you're using for your main drums or is the only possible way to get overhead drum samples or a drum VST that has overheads?

If there is no way to simulate this, what drum VSTs have good overheads?

This is for rock drums, obviously.

I think if I were doing that I'd put together a return track, send all the drums there, and mix that in parallel. Gluing them together properly would simulate overheads to some extent...

...I'm just tossing this out now (haven't had to do it - I've been spoiled by Abbey Road drums, which have mixins for bleed and overheads), but just thinking how I would start.

BTW - like the new avatar

Abbey Road drums (in Komplete?) have overheads?

2 overheads and a room mic (so three channels) for the 60s and 70s, 2 overheads, a stereo room, and a mono room for the 80s, Modern, and (interestingly) Vintage. I think the configuration for the overheads are a little different for 60s and 70s, etc. But In all cases, you have complete control over each mic in the mixer (volume, width for stereo, pan for mono, solo, mute), as well as two convenient controls on the main page for adjusting the overall volume of both the overheads and room mics.

(NI - imma gonna want some commissions soon )

[Unaspected]

I would imagine that a plugin like 2CAudio's Precedence would help with 'faking' overheads - from what I've read - I still need to check the plugin out first hand.

Otherwise, it would be a matter of sending pre-filtered and panned versions of your drums to a stereo channel and then treating it as actual overheads. So what I am suggesting is processing the sends before processing on their own channels and before they arrive at the overhead channel.

For (very rough) example with one tom drum:

Channel 1: Tom input (send to channel 2 and 3)
Channel 2: Process tom drum for direct sound (send to drum buss)
Channel 3: Process tom drum for overheads (send to channel 4)
Channel 4: Overheads (send to drum buss)

So your overheads and direct sound hit the drum buss in parallel.

Abbey Road drums (in Komplete?) have overheads?

It does. I do love the Abbey Road kit though if you're doing harder rock, you might choose the Studio Drummer - also part of Komplete.

[wagtunes]

Okay, so you mic drums and you've got your floor mics and your overheads.

If you're using virtual drums and are using a drum VST that doesn't have overhead drum samples that you can mix in, is there a way to simulate overhead drums using the same samples that you're using for your main drums or is the only possible way to get overhead drum samples or a drum VST that has overheads?

If there is no way to simulate this, what drum VSTs have good overheads?

This is for rock drums, obviously.

I think if I were doing that I'd put together a return track, send all the drums there, and mix that in parallel. Gluing them together properly would simulate overheads to some extent...

...I'm just tossing this out now (haven't had to do it - I've been spoiled by Abbey Road drums, which have mixins for bleed and overheads), but just thinking how I would start.

BTW - like the new avatar

Abbey Road drums (in Komplete?) have overheads?

2 overheads and a room mic (so three channels) for the 60s and 70s, 2 overheads, a stereo room, and a mono room for the 80s, Modern, and (interestingly) Vintage. I think the configuration for the overheads are a little different for 60s and 70s, etc. But In all cases, you have complete control over each mic in the mixer (volume, width for stereo, pan for mono, solo, mute), as well as two convenient controls on the main page for adjusting the overall volume of both the overheads and room mics.

(NI - imma gonna want some commissions soon )

Joe I may pay you myself. Okay, last question. I don't know if you can help me with this. First off, I have Komplete 11 so I've got all the drum kits. I assume they all have overheads.

Anyway, here's the question as I've never actually gotten into serious drum processing before.

What is the best way for me to go about processing these tracks?

Here's the lazy way I used to record the drums for rock songs.

Record all drums (kick, snare, hat, etc) on one track. Process with EQ, compression, reverb, whatever, and I'm done. I'm dead serious. That's all I did.

I'm assuming that if I really want to do this right, I'm going to have to do the following:

Step 1 - Record drum part playing it live.

Step 2 - MIDI split the individual notes (kick, snare, etc) into separate tracks.

Step 3 - Take each separate track and then split them into 2 tracks each. One with the direct mic out and one with the overhead mic.

Step 4 - Send all of that into one drum buss.

My question is this, assuming the above is correct and I haven't left out anything. Is there anything special that I have to do to the overhead tracks to get them to sound right or will that already be taken care of by Abbey Road drums itself? How much extra work is actually involved after steps 1-4 to get these drums to really sound great? As I've never done any serious processing on drums before, I have no idea where to start.

[donkey tugger]

Okay, so you mic drums and you've got your floor mics and your overheads.

If you're using virtual drums and are using a drum VST that doesn't have overhead drum samples that you can mix in, is there a way to simulate overhead drums using the same samples that you're using for your main drums or is the only possible way to get overhead drum samples or a drum VST that has overheads?

If there is no way to simulate this, what drum VSTs have good overheads?

This is for rock drums, obviously.

I think if I were doing that I'd put together a return track, send all the drums there, and mix that in parallel. Gluing them together properly would simulate overheads to some extent...

...I'm just tossing this out now (haven't had to do it - I've been spoiled by Abbey Road drums, which have mixins for bleed and overheads), but just thinking how I would start.

BTW - like the new avatar

Abbey Road drums (in Komplete?) have overheads?

2 overheads and a room mic (so three channels) for the 60s and 70s, 2 overheads, a stereo room, and a mono room for the 80s, Modern, and (interestingly) Vintage. I think the configuration for the overheads are a little different for 60s and 70s, etc. But In all cases, you have complete control over each mic in the mixer (volume, width for stereo, pan for mono, solo, mute), as well as two convenient controls on the main page for adjusting the overall volume of both the overheads and room mics.

(NI - imma gonna want some commissions soon )

Joe I may pay you myself. Okay, last question. I don't know if you can help me with this. First off, I have Komplete 11 so I've got all the drum kits. I assume they all have overheads.

Anyway, here's the question as I've never actually gotten into serious drum processing before.

What is the best way for me to go about processing these tracks?

Here's the lazy way I used to record the drums for rock songs.

Record all drums (kick, snare, hat, etc) on one track. Process with EQ, compression, reverb, whatever, and I'm done. I'm dead serious. That's all I did.

I'm assuming that if I really want to do this right, I'm going to have to do the following:

Step 1 - Record drum part playing it live.

Step 2 - MIDI split the individual notes (kick, snare, etc) into separate tracks.

Step 3 - Take each separate track and then split them into 2 tracks each. One with the direct mic out and one with the overhead mic.

Step 4 - Send all of that into one drum buss.

My question is this, assuming the above is correct and I haven't left out anything. Is there anything special that I have to do to the overhead tracks to get them to sound right or will that already be taken care of by Abbey Road drums itself? How much extra work is actually involved after steps 1-4 to get these drums to really sound great? As I've never done any serious processing on drums before, I have no idea where to start.

Drum samplers will generally have an inbulit mixer with effects, and the individual drums/room/overhead channels will be split already onto separate channels. You can also usually route any of these mixer channels to individual sequencer mixer channels if you want to use your own effects. No need therefore (usually..) to split your midi piano roll track into individual ones for each drum.

[Unaspected]

My question is this, assuming the above is correct and I haven't left out anything. Is there anything special that I have to do to the overhead tracks to get them to sound right or will that already be taken care of by Abbey Road drums itself? How much extra work is actually involved after steps 1-4 to get these drums to really sound great? As I've never done any serious processing on drums before, I have no idea where to start.

If you don't want to get into drum processing, the Komplete kits have a variety of presets based on genre. Then all you have to do is balance levels to taste before sending to your drum buss. It's also easy enough to remove the processing if you want to design your own sound.

[JoeCat]

Joe I may pay you myself. Okay, last question. I don't know if you can help me with this. First off, I have Komplete 11 so I've got all the drum kits. I assume they all have overheads.

Anyway, here's the question as I've never actually gotten into serious drum processing before.

What is the best way for me to go about processing these tracks?

Here's the lazy way I used to record the drums for rock songs.

Record all drums (kick, snare, hat, etc) on one track. Process with EQ, compression, reverb, whatever, and I'm done. I'm dead serious. That's all I did.

I'm assuming that if I really want to do this right, I'm going to have to do the following:

Step 1 - Record drum part playing it live.

Step 2 - MIDI split the individual notes (kick, snare, etc) into separate tracks.

Step 3 - Take each separate track and then split them into 2 tracks each. One with the direct mic out and one with the overhead mic.

Step 4 - Send all of that into one drum buss.

My question is this, assuming the above is correct and I haven't left out anything. Is there anything special that I have to do to the overhead tracks to get them to sound right or will that already be taken care of by Abbey Road drums itself? How much extra work is actually involved after steps 1-4 to get these drums to really sound great? As I've never done any serious processing on drums before, I have no idea where to start.

Wags - I'm a bit confused - did you mean you used to record an actual live kit?

I assume in "Step 1" you're referring to midi-trigger recording, since we're talking about that in track 2. I think that depends on the genre and what feel you're going for. For my personal productions, I do have an electronic kit but haven't used it for recording - I've gotten very good at finger drumming (keys more so than pads).

If you're using Abbey Road, there's no reason to split anything (and if not, like donkey tugger said, you can usually just route the channels).

Abbey Road sounds good enough out of the box IMHO and you decent got deccent enough processing on-board (eq, compression), so no need to do any overhead simulation, etc. unless you're using a bunch of closed-mic samples and trying to simulate the overheads.

I still might use some compression, additional reverb, etc. on the final drum buss but at some point it's splitting hairs.

If you're not using something like Abbey Road, then yeah - regardless of how you get to Step 3, I'd mirror the tracks - then you could process each drum separately and add some track delays to simulate phase effects, etc - for the overheads. But that's a lot of work. Then, I'd send the processed tracks to an "overheads buss", then mix THAT buss in parallel with the closed mics and send it to the drum buss. That's a ton of work though if you've already got something like Abbey Road.

Live drums - forget about it! Unless you're Hal Blaine and working in an awesome studio - or want that "indie" sound

Honestly, besides doing some big production projects this year, as well as recording an album (playing and recording live drums), I'm learning that what one thinks is important is often less important, and other details you used to ignore come to the fore in unexpected ways. But that's a "whole 'nother" long topic!

(If I don't reply for a while today it's not 'cause I'm ignoring - I gotta get back to work! )

[wagtunes]

Thanks Joe. I think I know how I'm going to tackle this.

[vurt]

mic positioning comes from the recording.
kontakts internal mixers deals with it

but if you route those out to separate channels, pan hard left and right, eq low end out.
aside from a little crosstalk, the overheads are there for your cymbals/hats.
kick, snare and tom should be close miced.

[wagtunes]

mic positioning comes from the recording.
kontakts internal mixers deals with it

but if you route those out to separate channels, pan hard left and right, eq low end out.
aside from a little crosstalk, the overheads are there for your cymbals/hats.
kick, snare and tom should be close miced.

But don't the overheads pick up everything?

[donkey tugger]

mic positioning comes from the recording.
kontakts internal mixers deals with it

but if you route those out to separate channels, pan hard left and right, eq low end out.
aside from a little crosstalk, the overheads are there for your cymbals/hats.
kick, snare and tom should be close miced.

But don't the overheads pick up everything?

You choose how much of each kit piece goes to overheads/room channel -the oh and room mix knobs. In the more advanced settings on the mixer page you can also alter the amount of bleed from the snare which will go into the other mics.